Liverpool: Luis Suarez's 10 Match Ban And 6 Other Famous Footballing Punishments

By Danny Hill / April 29, 2013

a 10 match ban. But this has once again raised questions over exactly how the FA have calculated this punishment. 10 games? Why 10? Does that mean that biting another player is worse than racial abuse, for which Suarez received an 8 match ban? Others have also remembered that Jermain Defoe bit Javier Mascherano back in 2006, but all he got was a yellow card. Where is the consistency in the FA€™s punishments? The whole situation is rather peculiar, but gives football fans plenty to talk about. Here are 6 of the most famous punishments that the FA have ever dealt out...

6. Ben Thatcher For Elbowing Pedro Mendes €“ 8 Match Ban

Back in 2006, Manchester City defender Ben Thatcher chased after a loose ball with Portsmouth€™s Pedro Mendes. After Mendes had won the foot race and cleared the ball, Thatcher made a deliberate and horrendous challenge leading with his elbow, catching Mendes in the face. The blow was so hard that it left Mendes unconscious by the advertising hoardings. He soon required oxygen, and on the way to the hospital he suffered a seizure. Thankfully Mendes was OK, but the FA had no choice but to hand out an 8 match ban to Thatcher, with a further fifteen game suspended ban for two years, which would have been triggered if he had displayed similar behaviour. Not only that, but his own club fined him six weeks€™ wages, and separately banned him for 6 more games, two of which were suspended.